


doesn't mean we're not smart

by mildlydiscouraging



Series: the worst game ever. of all time. [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Getting Together, Literal Sleeping Together, Long-Distance Friendship, M/M, Terrible Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 10:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4017088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlydiscouraging/pseuds/mildlydiscouraging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or <i>When Grif Met Simmons... (In Real Life) (For the First Time)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	doesn't mean we're not smart

**Author's Note:**

> how grif and simmons got together. both literally and figuratively. figuratively? that doesn't make any sense... oh well.

Only a half an hour into the trip and Simmons had already resorted to staring out the window like he was the protagonist in some indie flick. He isn’t nervous or anything. Of course he isn’t. He’s just going to meet one of his best friends that he might be in love with. For the first time. After four months of knowing each other. He’s fine, really. He’s just going to lean his head against the window of the train until he stops feeling kind of sick, he must’ve had too much for breakfast, that’s all.

Simmons wakes up almost an hour later, banging his head on the window when his phone jumps in his lap. Gingerly rubbing the side of his head, the redhead squints at the screen and rubs his bleary eyes.

That doesn’t matter as much once he actually reads the message and his eyes widen so fast it almost hurts.

“‘Saw you’re in SanFran tonight, thought we could all meet up for dinner unless you’re far too busy’,” Simmons reads under his breath, hoping it would make more sense if he read it out loud.

It didn’t.

“Shit.”

<+><+><+>

“Your _parents_?!” Grif’s voice sounds even scratchier through the phone and Simmons spaces out for a second when he realizes pretty soon he’ll be hearing that voice in person.

“Hey, Earth to Simmons.”

“What? Oh, yeah, no, they’re apparently in town for business and wanna meet me for dinner,” Simmons sighs and leans his forehead against the rain streaked window morosely.

“Dude, that sucks,” Grif says sympathetically. "What are you gonna do?"

"I have to go meet them." Simmons shrugs before remembering Grif can't see him. "I guess we'll have to hang out a little later then. I'm sorry."

"No problem. I'm still picking you up, though. Can't send you off like a lamb to the slaughter without getting to see you first."

The prospect of seeing his parents gets a little brighter after that.

<+><+><+>

When the train stops at the last station, Simmons almost doesn’t make it off in time. He’s too preoccupied with tugging the straps of his messenger bag shorter and then longer and then shorter again, only realizing it’s his stop when Grif texts him.

> _is that ur train?_ (19:14)  
>  _hey dweeblord, i wanna meet u already_ (19:15)

He stands up a little too quickly and his head spins a little from sitting down so long. Grabbing his suitcase from the overhead rack, he goes a little blind in the sudden daylight and stumbles briefly on his way out of the train.

As soon as his feet hit the platform, Simmons’s phone starts ringing in his hand.

“Are you here yet or what?”

“Nice to talk to you too, Grif,” he drags a hand through his hair, trying to fix how it had gotten flattened on one side from sleeping against the window. “Yes, I’m here, down at the far end of the platform. Are you already here?”

“Of course I am, dipshit.”

It takes him a couple of seconds to realize that the sound isn’t coming from his phone anymore and that it is, in fact, coming from the person standing right in front of him, holding onto his own phone and smiling at him in a fondly smug way.

“Oh,” Simmons says, still talking mostly into his phone. Once he realizes it, he quickly hangs up the phone, nervously pocketing it and almost dropping it on the hot concrete. Grif laughs at that, a sound just as infectious in person as it was over the phone, and that cements the fact that Simmons is in love with him.

“I’m in love with you.”

“What?”

His teeth click shut as soon as he realizes he said that out loud and his bites his tongue, literally. If only he had done that earlier, metaphorically.

“Dude, did you just say you love me?” Grif steps forward cautiously, like Simmons is a spooked deer that he doesn’t want to run away. Simmons kind of wants to run away.

“No, no,” Simmons takes a deep breath. “Nope, definitely did not say that I love- no, I said I love... the weather! Down here... The weather down here is really nice. It’s always raining in Washington and I just- yeah. The weather.”

Grif gives him a look that’s a cross between amused and embarrassed, but he might just be imagining the second one out of wishful thinking. They’d only met a few minutes ago for the first time and already Simmons was blushing enough that the heat radiating from his face was probably enough to fry bacon or something. Curse his stupidly fair Dutch-Irish skin.

“Yeah, it’s pretty sunny down here,” Grif remarks, grabbing the handle of Simmons’s little suitcase and starts wheeling it towards the parking lot. “At least it’s not the middle of the day, you’d already be melting into the sidewalk. Have you even ever been outside?”

Simmons rolls his eyes and hitches his bag higher on his shoulder.

“Ha, very funny.” He follows Grif into the maze of parked cars. “I can’t help being this pale, alright?”

“You must have a lot of cloud coverage up there, you look like an uncooked ball of pizza dough,” Grif keeps hitting the button on his keys, trying to find his car.

“Did you already forget where you parked? How long have you been here?” Simmons asks after a few minutes of wandering down the lanes. Grif doesn’t say anything, intent on finding the faint honking noise. Just when Simmons is about to give up and abandon Grif to look by himself, Grif lets out a triumphant “Yes!” and pops the trunk of a beat up orange sedan, throws Simmons’s suitcase in the backseat, and opens the driver’s side door.

“You coming?”

It’s suddenly occurred to Simmons that he’s actually doing this. He’s actually in San Francisco, a brand new city to him, to spend the week living with his best friend in the entire world, really the only best friend he’s ever known. It’s real, he’s here, and he’s going to tell Grif he loves him for real later. Once he’s actually planned it out fully and made sure there’s a relatively small margin of error.

“Yeah, totally,” he says, throwing his messenger bag in the backseat too and turning to get in the other side. Before he can, however, Grif throws his arms around Simmons’s middle and pulls him into a rib-crushing hug.

“’M glad you’re here,” he mutters into Simmons’s shoulder as he returns the hug and loops his arms around Grif’s neck.

“I’m glad I’m here, too,” Simmons whispers back. They hug for a few moments more, the warmth of Grif’s shirt seeping into him and replacing the chill of the air-conditioned train. Both of them let go at the same time, getting in the car and acting like it’d never happened.

Grif starts the car and turns up the fans as high as they can go. It blasts Simmons in the face with hot, stale air and he splutters for a second and covers the vents with his hands.

“Sorry,” Grif says as he pulls out of the parking spot, “the AC’s shit but I can’t be bothered to get it fixed.”

“It’s fine,” Simmons says, and he means it.

<+><+><+>

When they turn the corner to Simmons’ parents’ hotel, Grif lets out a low whistle and pulls into the first empty spot. The edge of the car scrapes up against the curb, but Grif doesn’t seem to care.

“This is really where they’re staying?” He raises an eyebrow and pulls the parking break. “Holy shit, you’re fucking loaded.”

“Ha.” Simmons unbuckles his seatbelt and leans his forehead on the dash. “ _They_ are," he corrects. "Trust me, they’re very adamant about that. Also I really don’t wanna go in there.”

The building is, frankly, massive, and the constantly spinning revolving doors are making Grif feel sick. They haven’t even been there thirty seconds and already he’s pretty sure he’s seen no more than three Lamborghinis. It’s impressive, to say the least.

“You know they’re probably waiting for you in there,” Grif points out.

Simmons just shakes his head and groans, still resting on the dashboard. “Can’t do it.”

“Do it.”

“Can’t.”

“You’re the most infuriating person I’ve ever met,” Grif unbuckles his own seatbelt and gets out of the car. Simmons doesn’t notice until he yanks open the passenger door and Simmons almost hits the concrete.

“Get up,” Grif pulls Simmons out of the car, grabbing his (super dorky) maroon Member’s Only jacket from the backseat and pushing him up on the sidewalk.

“Look,” he continues, “I know how hard it is to deal with shitty parents, trust me I do. But you’ve gotta just suck it up and deal with it. They suck, yeah, but they’re still your parents.”

As much as he hates to admit it, Grif does have a point. Simmons pushes his glasses up onto his forehead and rubs his eyes but he nods anyway, saying, “Yeah, I know.”

“Plus, we’re gonna have pizza after and I’ll even let you have more than one piece. Dude, you look like shit, c’mere.”

Simmons rolls his eyes but lets Grif try to flatten down his hair anyway. That is, until Grif starts smudging his glasses and Simmons has to bat this hands away.

“Go get your shit together,” Grif says, getting back in the car and turning on the engine, “and hurry up 'cuz I wanted that pizza like an hour ago.”

“Whatever, fatass,” his face says annoyed but his voice says thankful. He waves at the retreating car and sighs. Turning back to the imposing hotel, he crosses the street.

Might as well just get it over with.

<+><+><+>

“Look, all I’m trying to say is what I’m doing with my life isn’t a complete waste of time.”

Simmons says it more confidently than he feels, wringing the cloth napkin in his hands and staring at his empty plate.

“We just want you to be happy,” his mother leans across the table and lays a hand on his forearm. It’s cold, the air conditioning inside preserving all the ancient relics of guests from the humidity outside, and her hand feels like a frozen mummy. It’s not his best comparison, and he can already hear Grif laughing when he tells him later, but it’s accurate.

“And successful,” his father cuts in, talking into the menu he has held in front of his face.

Simmons closes his eyes and counts to thirty, watching the shapes swirl behind his eyelids as he tries to breathe normally. He remembers reading something about them recently, how the lights and shapes you see when you rub your eyes are called phosphenes and are basically just cause by random firing cells in the eye. They happen by complete mistake and yet they’re one of the most indescribably beautiful parts of the human body.

“Not to mention how much you must be spending on travel,” he continues, “which we would be more than glad to help out with, if-“

“If I do what you want,” Simmons finishes for him. “If I do what you want instead of what I do. Dad…” He lets go of the napkin to push back the lock of hair threatening to fall into his eyes. They already think he’s unstable as is, better not give them even the tiniest bit more fuel for their forest fire.

Still maintaining eye contact with the tea lights in the middle of the table, he catches a glimpse of his father leaning back in his chair out of the corner of his eye. The easy confidence he exudes as he rolls his eyes makes Simmons feel jealous and sick at the same time.

Before he can say anything stupid in reply, the waiter comes back and the table fills with his mother’s usual chatter. Simmons orders the smallest thing on the menu, knowing he won’t eat it anyway but feeling slightly vindicated in the thought that they would still have to pay for it.

There’s only so long the waiter excuse can last and soon enough he leaves with their orders, plunging them back into the stale air and stale conversation.

The topic comes back almost immediately.

“We’ve been over this a million times by now-”

“And _I’ve_ explained it a million and _one_ times,” Simmons counters. “How many more will it take for you to understand that I love being an engineer, regardless of pay.”

His mother tuts and picks at her salad. He almost wants to ask her what her problem is, but his throat closes up and all he can do is breathe in and out through his nose. The familiar feeling of ineptitude drowns the rest of his senses as the polite conversation flows on around him.

<+><+><+>

“Did he really say you were ‘a kid playing with glorified Lego blocks’? Wow, what a douche.”

Grif shoves yet another piece of pizza in his mouth and Simmons would be concerned if he hadn’t already known about his disgusting eating habits. The TV across the room is playing the first sci-fi show Simmons had flicked past while Grif was busy organizing his pizzas (pineapple and bacon, every kind of meat possible, peppers and onions, the weird peanut Thai chicken one Simmons wanted, plain cheese for a break, then another pineapple and bacon).

“It’s not the worst thing he’s ever said,” Simmons steals another piece of pineapple pizza just to pick the fruit off it. “Like when I invented a new fan for airplane engines that would decrease combustion accidents by 34% and he compared it to the pinwheel my eight year-old cousin brought home from school that day. I’m not even a mechanical engineer, I work with software, but this was, like, an actual big deal.”

Grif makes an impressed noise around his pizza slice. “You’re a regular Einstein.”

“You know how last month I spent that week up in Seattle to work on the development of Amazon’s new app thing?”

Grif nods, remembering all the times Simmons had called him to complain about all the rain ruining his hair. It had been both annoying and endearing.

“Yeah, well, he just said they weren’t ‘paying for my degree just so I could slack off and drink hipster coffee’.”

“That’s just cold.” Grif points his slice accusingly. “No one gets to call you a hipster but me.”

Simmons rolls his eyes and turns back to the screen, ignoring the fondness pooling in his chest. Apparently they’d been watching Star Trek the whole time and Jean Luc Picard was currently pacing the holodeck. It was a testament to how important Grif was to him that he’d spaced out on his favorite Star Trek series.

“Are you gonna eat the rest of your weird pizza?” Grif says after a few minutes of watching the TV in silence. Well, of Simmons watching in silence. Grif was just eating.

“I thought you said green stuff on pizza was an abomination and an affront to nature?”

“Whatever.” He steals a slice out of one of the last box with pizza still in it. Simmons doesn’t even fight him on it, knowing it’s not worth it.

By the time the episode is over the rest of the boxes are empty and Grif is mostly asleep, feet propped up on one arm of the couch and his head lolling back onto Simmons’s shoulder. He’s been there since halfway through the episode, pretty much right after he’d finished the rest of the pizza. Deciding it was too much work to try to move him, Simmons just accepts the crushing weight of Grif on top of him and falls asleep easily.

<+><+><+>

Simmons swears he had only just blinked when suddenly it’s light outside and his shoulder aches like hell. Neither of them had bothered to close the blinds last night when it was dark out and now the searing light was filling every corner of the room. Simmons could feel the sleep in the corners of his eyes gluing his eyelids shut but nothing could stop the glowing early morning sunshine.

With a groan, he tries to sit up, only to find that he can’t because Grif is still sleeping on his shoulder.

“Grif,” Simmons shoves at him with the arm that isn’t asleep, “get off my shoulder, asshole.”

Grif, surprisingly, doesn’t do anything. Actually, he does do something; he rolls over slightly, burying his face the soft sleeve of Simmons’s t-shirt.

Simmons almost lets him get away with it, it’s so cute. “Grif, wake up.”

“If you’re waking me up before noon, it better be for something good.”

He barely even moves as he says it, sounding ridiculously awake. If it wasn’t for the feeling of warmth breath on his skin, Simmons would’ve thought he’d imagined it.

“My shoulder aches like hell,” Simmons complains as he shoves at Grif again, “and also I can’t feel my right arm.”

“Should’ve thought of that before you let me sleep on you,” Grif mumbles and turns over to hide his face in the crook of Simmons’s neck.

Simmons can feel his face heating up as he splutters, “Wh- You- That’s not fair, you didn’t give me a choice!”

“Shut up,” Grif yawns. “Calm the fuck down and go back to sleep.”

Simmons gives in, leaning his head on top of Grif’s and closing his eyes against the still bright living room. He only last a few seconds before he feels Grif’s hand come up to grab the other side of his shirt as he sighs.

“Grif…”

“Enough with the talking.”

“Grif.”

“God, can’t you be quiet for more than two seconds, Simmons?”

“I think I love you.”

That gets his attention.

“Did you just say what I think you just said?” He says, finally sitting up and looking at Simmons in concern. Simmons wouldn’t know though, since his eyes were more tightly shut than before. If only his big fat mouth could stay shut just as easily.

“Well…” He trails off, not knowing where he was planning on going with that sentence. And just when he was doing so well with the whole keeping-feelings-on-the-inside thing…

“Simmons,” Grif grabs his face with both hands and forces Simmons to look at him, “please tell me you just said you love me, or else this is going to get really awkward really fast.”

“What’s going to get awk-?”

And they’re kissing. Oh.

Of all the possible outcomes Simmons has gone over again and again, this was never one he thought of. But he told Grif he loves him and they’re _kissing_.

Well, technically Grif is kissing him. Simmons has yet to respond in any way other than letting it happen. All those times his father has told him to grow a spine come rushing back at the most inopportune of moments, but at least it’s coming to some use.

Somehow, while he was marveling over this turn of events in his head, Grif’s hands have found their way into Simmons’s hair, making his heart do another flippy thing as he rests his hands on Grif’s shoulders and starts kissing back. It’s not exactly flawless, as he’s pretty sure he accidentally bites Grif’s lip once or twice with his preternaturally sharp teeth, but it is beyond perfect.

“I totally called it,” Grif says when they finally pull apart. Simmons is glad he can’t see himself right now, as he’s sure he looks like a complete wreck. At least it reflects the way he feels inside.

“Called what?” Simmons questions, narrowing his eyebrows and pretending to look mildly offended. Grif’s hands have found their way to his waist and are rubbing soft circles in his shirt, so it’s kind of hard for him to concentrate, but he manages to pull it off (he hopes).

“At the train station yesterday,” Grif explains. “You totally said you loved me then too. You’ve really got it bad, huh?”

At the reminder of his earlier embarrassment, Simmons ducks his head and squeezes his eyes shut. He knew he hadn’t covered that up well. Shit.

“Hey.” Simmons looks up slightly to see Grif looking straight at him. “You know I love you too, right? Like, a shit ton.”

The sound Simmons makes is somewhere between a pterodactyl shriek and the squeak of a rubber duck, and it’s totally unattractive and embarrassing, but Grif laughs at it anyway and that’s enough for him. The kissing that happens afterwards is a nice bonus, though.

<+><+><+>

A couple hours later and they’re still on the couch. Grif has gotten up once to get pancakes from the diner down the block and Simmons brushed his teeth and changed out of his clothes from yesterday, but other than that they’ve been in the same spot all day. They’d been watching The Fifth Element (Grif’s choice) for about an hour when the argument started.

“June 7th is a good date, that’s all I’m saying. Aesthetically speaking, it’s a nice month/day/year combination to look at.”

“So you’re saying you picked today to _tell me you love me_ because the _numbers_ looked nice?”

“It’s an important factor to consider!”

Grif shakes his head. “You are the lamest person I’ve ever dated.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> title from "[anyone else but you](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceV62E-c86g)" by the moldy peaches. i love and hate this song in equal measure.
> 
> hope you enjoyed!! bc i did, with the whole writing it thing.
> 
> tumblr @[moonfullofstars](http://moonfullofstars.tumblr.com)


End file.
